Archive for October, 2010

Christians love to talk about stewardship — about tending to the garden, being resourceful, and managing well. But we tend to shy away from God’s more specific call of dominion. This is understandable, because for many of us dominion implies some sort of aggressive or violent destruction.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

The stereotypical “anti-greenie” view of this verse is framed aptly by Ann Coulter, who once interpreted Genesis 1:26 to mean, “Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.” The obvious problem with this is that there is nothing productive (or moral) about “rape.” God does not view us as mere resources to exploit, and thus, we should not falter by viewing the rest of creation that way. In this verse, God is making us unique to the rest of creation by forming us in His image. By giving us this power, God is giving us a responsibility to recognize the value in His creation and leverage it appropriately.

Fallen man has dominion over nature, but he uses it wrongly. The Christian is called upon to exhibit this dominion, but exhibit it rightly: treating the thing as having value itself, exercising dominion without being destructive.

Holcomb goes on to say that viewing ourselves in God’s image means using Jesus as a primary example for how to dominate creation:

The lordship of Jesus should be our model for understanding how we relate to the natural order. This means that dominion should be expressed as service — sacrificial service of the others with and for whom we are responsible — rather than mastery.

Given that I recently reviewed Anthony Bradley’s Liberating Black Theology, I thought this video would be a valuable follow-up to the discussion. Although Bradley’s book focuses specifically on black liberation theology, this is only one manifestation of a larger theological trend among oppressed minorities.

What I find most noteworthy is the overarching discussion about liberation theology’s emphasis on doing vs. learning.

As Gregg puts it:

One of the things that liberation theologians talked about was this idea of praxis — you have to act, you have to do things — to which the response of people like John Paul II or then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was, “Yes, action is important, but it has to be informed by correct thought.” In other words, orthodoxy, which means right thought, has to inform orthopraxy. Orthopraxis in itself would not give you a coherent reason for doing what it is you’re doing. So theologically, and even just in terms of its own logic, I think liberation theology was always destined to fall apart.

We take seven years to complete our bachelor’s degrees, and when we’re finally finished, we complain about our debt. We specialize in fields like literature and “diversity studies” and then complain about the lack of high-paying jobs. We live with Mom and Dad till we’re 30, only so we can have enough cash to buy the newest gadgets and clothes. All of this delayed development – all of this self-absorbed, childish dilly-dallying – has led to an unproductive and entitled generation.

In our current economy, we still have plenty of time to choose lesser punishments – to get serious about our goals, to reexamine our futures, to readjust our attitudes, to pursue new careers. But at some point, drastic misbehavior will require drastic measures. And when it comes to my generation’s defiant, entitled, know-it-all mentality, I fear that we will reject the milder forms of discipline in hopes that we can escape any discomfort altogether.

While we Christians often form our views on such institutions as marriage and the family from our theology, we acquire our understanding of markets from our politics. If we subscribe to a progressive politics, we adopt the Left’s criticism of markets and support for government control over them. If we subscribe to conservative politics, we embrace the Right’s unquestioning allegiance to unfettered markets.

Here’s an excerpt from my response (or “regurgitation,” if you prefer):

For conservatives and libertarians, this does not mean we should toss our political arguments out the window. This does not mean that the public benefits of market efficiency and specialization should be ignored. Instead, it means that at a fundamental level we must ensure that such views are grounded by and consistent with a theological understanding of the market.

As Christians, what is the overall, high-level purpose of the market? How does God see it in terms of its ideal, supreme usefulness? How does God view the market as a natural, organic feature of individual humanity and community interaction? Once we begin to Read the rest of this entry »

Mohler’s primary goal is to simply get Christians thinking about thinking, but more specifically, he calls us to grasp the difference between a “regenerate mind” and an “unregenerate mind.” Additionally, Mohler believes that we need to fully understand the “mind of the age” in order to preach the Gospel effectively.

He structures his argument around what he calls a “knowledge crisis” — a struggle that has engaged humanity since the Fall of Man. As far as what kind of crisis this is, and how we are supposed to overcome it, thinks the fundamental problem is that “we suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (pointing specifically to Romans 1).

Indeed, although overall human knowledge has come a long way since the Fall, we are still largely presumptuous about Read the rest of this entry »

I have thus far expressed mixedfeelings about the pledge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to donate half of their wealth to charity, so I thought it would be fitting to pass on the latest addition to the narrative. According to Bloomberg, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim recently said that he would prefer to use his money for job creation rather than donate it to [so-called] anti-poverty causes (HT Dambisa Moyo).

“The only way to fight poverty is with employment,” Slim said at a conference in Sydney today. “Trillions of dollars have been given to charity in the last 50 years, and they don’t solve anything.”

As I’ve mentioned previously, I obviously don’t think philanthropy is “bad,” nor do I think it is something we should necessarily avoid. But if we are talking about addressing the particular concern Slim is pointing to — namely, “fighting poverty” on a global scale — it seems highly convincing to me that increasing employment through traditional investment is usually the most successful solution from a macro perspective. (Could I add any more caveats!?)

But that doesn’t mean it always is (or even that it actually is). There are plenty of counterarguments that leave the solution a bit up in the air for me. For example, philanthropy has the potential to bring plenty of spiritual benefits to the table by funding missionaries, planting churches, and simply promoting Christ-like behavior. Depending on what you believe, such spiritual transformation could indeed lead to Read the rest of this entry »

I have a new post at Common Sense Concept discussing Jesus’ advice on dealing with temptation. Specifically, I look at how Christians like to implement such teachings using political force.

I focus on the following passage, which is Jesus’ response to his disciples’ inquiry on “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”:

And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

So if we do try to look at this passage politically, what can we gather from it, if anything?

Here’s an excerpt of my response:

We are tempted to act on Jesus’ words by rashly rolling out some kind of policy to deal with people’s junk. We don’t try to channel human nature through incentives or think about public sins vs. Biblical sins. Instead, we rush to seize the objects of our temptations, and in our attempts to do so we instantly rob Jesus’ message of everything that makes it unique.

This is not the Quranic message of “cut off his or her hands.” We are not called to put our sisters in burqas just so the men won’t have to deal with their lust. Jesus’ message is the entirely different, non-political, non-coercive message of “cut off your own hands.”

The first time I heard Reverend Jeremiah Wright yell, “God damn America!” I was eating breakfast with complete strangers. My college choir was touring the Midwest and each night we would stay with local volunteer families. There I was, sipping coffee with my host family, when the now-infamous clip of Rev. Wright’s sermon began to play on the morning news.

A bit of awkwardness set in, but it was eventually relieved by the mother, who let out a modest laugh and simply said, “Well…that was interesting.”

It was the spring before the 2008 election, and that replay of Rev. Wright’s sermon was certainly not the last. But throughout the entire media hubbub that followed, I couldn’t help but think back to that mother’s reaction.

What did most Americans really think of all this? What was it about Rev. Wright’s sermon that so thoroughly enraged them? Did it have to do with his core religious beliefs, or was it merely his insult to America? Did they outright dismiss Rev. Wright as a fringe radical, or did they understand that his belief system held prominence in some circles?

For Bradley, however, the Obama-Wright controversy serves only as a window into the realm of black liberation theology. Without it, most Americans, including most blacks, would be unaware that such theology even exists. Therefore, Bradley’s book is not about politics, nor is it even about Rev. Wright. Instead, it focuses wholly on the actual theology — its history, its anthropology, and its overall implications. More specifically, Bradley seeks to both outline its core problems and suggest a proper alternative that is, in his belief, consistent with both the black experience and the Word of God.

So what is black liberation theology?

Here’s a definition quoted in the book from the National Committee of Black Church Men (1969):

Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Black theology is a theology of “blackness.” It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from white racism, thus providing Read the rest of this entry »

A couple months ago I wrote a post about the recent pledge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to give away at least half of their riches to charity. In my post, I noted the potential of such charity while emphasizing that giving away your money is not necessarily as transformative as investing it for profit.

However, if one does decide to divert their resources to charity, the main focus of the discussion becomes centered on whether those resources are being allocated efficiently and effectively. 60 Minutes recently interviewed Bill and Melinda Gates about the targets of their charity, and their responses indicate that their efforts are not lacking in the realm of care and consideration.

I will be writing on the site’s Two Cents Blog on Faith and Free Enterprise along with some extremely bright evangelical thinkers. I look forward to participating in the conversation and am excited to watch this effort continue to evolve.

My first post is already up on the blog, and it provides a glimpse into my intellectual journey from childhood to adulthood. I talk about LEGOs, puzzles, and most importantly, how horrifying communism sounded as a six-year-old.

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

Being the ignorant little kid I was, I asked my Mom if the U.S.S.R. was the biggest country in the world. She walked over to the puzzle, glanced at the back of the box, and informed me that as of a few months ago, the U.S.S.R. no longer existed.